For every woman who's ever held joy and sorrow in the same breath—this debut is a tender, powerful reminder that you are not alone​. The Size of Your Joy is an intimate and empowering exploration of the complex and often contradictory experiences of womanhood, offering an unflinching look at how identity, resilience, and self-worth are shaped by the intersections of love, grief, and longing. Through the birth of her daughter, the vital yet complicated relationships between the women in her life, and the realities of being a woman in the world, Powers reflects on how ideas of beauty, desire, and shame are quietly passed from one generation to the next, and what it takes to break those cycles. She examines the hunger—for belonging, autonomy, and joy—that women are taught to suppress, while imagining a path forward defined by liberation and self-acceptance. A celebration of reclamation, The Size of Your Joy asks how we might carry both sorrow and joy, loss and love, as dual forces that shape the stories we inherit and the lives we choose to create. This collection invites readers to embrace joy not as the absence of struggle, but as an act of defiance and hope.  "Each poem felt like a generous treat, and how I wanted to savour them. Elise has such a gift for distilling the complexities of life, love, and longing into a few carefully chosen words. Her poetry is as powerful as it is gentle, the kind that lingers with you long after the page is turned. Her poems took me to so many places in so few lines, a true art, but also kind of magic." — Jessica Urlichs , author of Beautiful Chaos " The Size of Your Joy traces what it is to be a woman in love with an impossible world. From girlhood to womanhood, this book reminds us what's worth holding onto." — Joy Sullivan , author of Instructions for Travelling West "A tender exploration of womanhood, inheritance, and the brutal beauty woven through the everyday, The Size of Your Joy reminds us of the sacred ordinary. These are poems to return to again and again." —   Danielle Coffyn , author of If Adam Picked the Apple Elise Powers received a BA in English Literature from Western Washington University. Her poems reflect on identity, womanhood, and the ordinary moments that make up a life. Her work has appeared in literary magazines and anthologies including Gather and Only Poems , and has been shortlisted for the Central Avenue Poetry Prize , awarded second place in the Black Horse Review Poetry Contest, and nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology . She lives in Seattle with her husband and daughter, where she writes, collects sea glass, and savors life’s tender joys. Find more of her work on Instagram @elisepowerspoet and on Substack at Two Raw Sugars . I Do Not Order Two Raw Sugars In My Americano But the barista at my local spot doesn't know that. Or, she doesn't care. I've tried to tell her, but she sees my face and laces my cup like a grandmother who won't take no for an answer. Despite myself, I soften into this small insistence. Did you know a black coffee has just two calories? Add cream and it swells to forty two. Sugar, and it surges another hundred. This information matters only when the size of your body is more important than the size of your joy. Yet, even when we don't ask for it, even when we insist against it, joy always finds us again. One day soon it will sweeten your coffee, or curl into the crook of your elbow, of nest in your magnolia, and you'll say, yes, yes, I remember.